The challenge
Salute, backed by growth-oriented alternative investment firm New Mountain Capital (which manages approximately $60 billion in assets under management across its investment strategies), has ambitious growth plans: to evolve market perception beyond its heritage in specialist data centre cleaning and establish itself globally as provider of services across the entire data centre lifecycle.
Following the acquisition of UK-based consultancy Keysource, which Element had been working with prior to the deal, alongside AI specialist consultancy ADCC, Salute faced a complex communications challenge. The business needed to retain the strong brand awareness and credibility Keysource had built in the European market, while simultaneously unifying multiple businesses under the Salute brand and accelerating growth across EMEA and the US.
At the same time, Salute set aggressive commercial ambitions, targeting rapid international expansion and a valuation increase by the end of 2026. A key success factor would be current and future customers becoming aware of the full lifecycle of services that Salute now offers. Communications needed to support that growth with clarity, consistency and scale.
“As we’re growing at such a rapid pace, it’s important that our communications clearly reflect what Salute does today and support where we’re heading as a business. When we made the decision to expand Element’s work with us, it was because we knew we needed to retain the credibility that our brands had built, while accelerating awareness of Salute as a full lifecycle partner across the world,” said Nick Beale, VP of Global Marketing at Salute.
The approach
Having seen the impact of the results Element Communications delivered for Keysource in the 18 months prior to its acquisition, Element was appointed as Salute’s PR and communications agency across EMEA and the US in January, expanding the partnership to support the next phase of global growth.
Element began with a senior-level communications strategy workshop to align leadership teams around a unified narrative. This work focused on defining Salute’s positioning as a full lifecycle data centre services provider, spanning the entire infrastructure journey – from design and build through to operations, optimisation, innovation and refresh.
The strategy balanced continuity and evolution. In Europe, Element retained and leveraged the equity of the Keysource brand to maintain trust and recognition during the transition. In parallel, the team began establishing Salute’s expanded proposition globally, clearly articulating its capabilities beyond data center operations and into fully end-to-end data center lifecycle support.
This foundation has enabled an integrated communications programme now underway to support Salute’s fast-tracked growth, including:
- Senior leadership team profiling across international business, technology and national media
- Ongoing management and evolution of Salute’s flagship State of the Industry research, positioning the business as a thought leader shaping the future of data centre infrastructure
- Product marketing and messaging development to empower sales teams with clear, commercially focused narratives across regions
The impact
Element continues to play a central role in Salute’s transition from a specialist services provider into a globally positioned data centre lifecycle leader.
“Element’s been fantastic at helping us work through the complexities of our communications and marketing requirements. They’ve helped us get clearer on how we talk about the business, raise the profile of the leadership team and support our commercial aims”, adds Beale.
To date, the programme has helped Salute to:
- Retain and build on Salute’s strong European market presence during a period of significant change
- Establish the foundations of a clear, credible global brand narrative across EMEA and the US
- Support commercial momentum through leadership visibility, thought leadership and sales enablement
By aligning brand, messaging and market relevance, Element is supporting Salute’s ambition to scale rapidly, strengthen valuation and lead the global conversation on the future of data centre infrastructure.